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The Crown has said Tim Bosma was shot in his truck while out for a test drive with two men on May 6, 2013. They say his body was then burned in an incinerator. (Toronto Star file photo)

By Molly HayesThe Hamilton Spectator

Thu., Feb. 18, 2016

Her testimony was graphic and scientific, but Tracy Rogers’s words were careful and sensitive.

Testifying Thursday about the collection of human bone and ash from an incinerator found on Dellen Millard’s farm back in May 2013, the forensic anthropologist stressed her determination to give the family every tiny piece that she could.

“I thought it was important for the family’s peace of mind that they have all the remains,” she told the jury. Her voice cracked as she spoke and she apologized.

“Everything that could be retrieved from the incinerator was retrieved.”

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After her testimony, Tim Bosma’s father Hank followed Rogers out of the courtroom and gave her a hug.

Dellen Millard, 30, and his friend Mark Smich, 28, are on trial for the first-degree murder of Tim Bosma, who disappeared after taking two men for a test drive in his truck on May 6, 2013.

The Crown says Bosma was shot in the truck that night.

His body, they say, was burned in “The Eliminator” — the brand name of that three-metre animal cremator discovered by a dirt biker on a wooded laneway on Millard’s Roseville Rd. farm property in Ayr.

Rogers, one of Canada’s leading forensic anthropologists, has testified as an expert witness in many murder cases, including the Robert Pickton trial back in 2007.

In this case, she spent days at the farm after that discovery, even — the jury saw in photos — climbing inside the incinerator to carefully collect the fragile remains.

There were two substantial pieces of human bones recovered, she testified; one, a human left radius, and the other, a human metacarpal. Both had been damaged by fire. These were most likely from a man, she said, and most likely one under the age of 40 — because of the absence of signs of arthritis, which she said usually kicks in around 35 or 40.

Bosma was 32 when he disappeared.

Rogers also testified about the detailed grid search of two “burn sites” on the farm. A tent was erected around the two circular sites — which reeked of gasoline — as a team of anthropology students combed the charred sections of corn field looking for evidence.

In addition to three seatbelts — which the jury saw Wednesday — they also found grommets, a metal spring, glass, burned wood, a partially melted plastic bottle and coins.

The jury also heard Thursday from a handful of people who were in or around the Millard farm — nicknamed “the Roseville Swamp” by locals because of the swamp area to the east — on that week in May 2013.

Evan Snider, the farmer who was leasing crop land from Millard at the time, testified about seeing the incinerator for the first time on May 13, 2013, while showing police the property boundaries.

Stephen Henhoeffer, a dairy farmer on Roseville Rd., recalled seeing a plume of grey-black smoke coming from the Millard property back on an early morning back in May 2013. He thought it seemed off, but didn’t think much of it. On May 15, after learning about the investigation, he called the tip into police — but he couldn’t recall whether it had been on May 7 or May 8.

Armin Seibert — who lives on four hectares adjacent to (and long ago, part of) the Millard farmland — also testified Thursday about a hindsight observation of odd activity at the farm that week. He told police that around 11 or 11:30 p.m. one night (he, too, couldn’t recall if it was May 7 or the next day) he saw flashlights bouncing off a silo on the Millard farm while bringing his horses in for the night.

Cousins Brian Franklin and Jason McGrath — a friend of Snider’s son — were on the property the weekend of May 4 during turkey hunting season. McGrath testified he’d never seen a farm animal on the property. During cross-examination, he agreed with Millard’s co-counsel Nadir Sachak that the gate to the property (and to the laneway where the incinerator was found) was rarely locked.

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